Survey Findings

To identify which nuclear dangers to the United States experts are most concerned about today, the forces they think will have the greatest influence on the future, and their expectations of what the top nuclear dangers will be in 20 years, I sent surveys to 100 professionals with experience in nuclear security, yielding 50 responses. I then coded these responses and compared concerns about current nuclear dangers with expectations of nuclear dangers in 2043. Top takeaways from the survey include:

• Russia is seen as the leading threat to the United States today, with 78 percent of respondents listing it among their top three concerns—far more than any other danger. Given its 2022 invasion of Ukraine and repeated threats to use nuclear weapons, this is unsurprising. More surprising is the expectation that Russia’s nuclear salience will decline: Only 24 percent of respondents identified Russia as a top potential danger in 2043.
• By contrast, only 50 percent of respondents mentioned China as a top concern today, and only 36 percent thought it would present a principal danger two decades from now, despite the Biden administration’s view that China presents the “pacing challenge” to the United States¹ and the Pentagon’s analysis that the People’s Liberation Army “is advancing its long-term modernization plans to enhance its strategic deterrence capabilities.”²
• Many respondents (40 percent) expressed concern about growing strategic instability—that is, they are worried not only about specific states but about unsteady dynamics among them, now and in the future. Respondents were more concerned about the possible failure of deterrence, the potential for escalation, and the emergence of greater complexity as more nuclear states field more nuclear weapons. Although 32 percent of respondents cited arms races with Russia and China as a top concern today, fewer (14 percent) expressed concern about proliferation to new states in the short term. However, those numbers flipped when envisioning nuclear dangers in 2043, with nearly twice as many respondents citing horizontal proliferation over vertical proliferation.
• Nuclear terrorism barely registered as a present or future worry among respondents. This is surprising given the anxiety that policymakers, nuclear experts, and the public expressed 20 years ago. In 2004, during their first presidential debate, both George W. Bush and John Kerry cited nuclear terrorism as their top fear. A poll of international security experts commissioned by Senator Richard Lugar the following year found a 29 percent probability of a nuclear attack by 2015, odds that were echoed in a mathematical model developed by Harvard’s Matthew Bunn.³ Others, like Harvard’s Graham Allison, expressed even greater concern.⁴ That concern appears to have abated, suggesting the sharp change that can take place in two decades.
• American political dysfunction and its detrimental effect on policy will significantly influence the future of nuclear dangers to the United States, according to 50 percent of respondents—more than any other factor cited. Respondents expressed particular concern about domestic political polarization, noting that these divisions could weaken U.S. leadership abroad or result in a neo-isolationist foreign policy that weakens the power of democracies generally at a time of rising authoritarianism.